PFI critic rebuts criticism from select committee

Professor Allyson Pollock, head of the Health Policy and Health Services Research Unit, University College London, and one of the leading critics of the government's private finance initiative (PFI), has written to David Hinchliffe MP, chairman of the Commons health select committee, protesting about the committee's recent report (18 May, p 1173).

She has asked the committee to withdraw paragraphs 65 to 69 of the report, The Role of the Private Sector in the NHS, which was published last month and which criticised the work of her unit.

Professor Pollock says in her letter: “The damaging remarks are based on an inaccurate account of the committee's own proceedings, including oral evidence and written memoranda, and of our research.